


Penitent

by Carrogath



Series: Penitent [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Choking, F/F, Post-Canon, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Content, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:13:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22257004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrogath/pseuds/Carrogath
Summary: “Someday,” Dorothea says, “you’ll conquer your fear of churches.”“I’m not afraid of them.”“Of course not.… And you love rats.”Edelgard has a problem with Mercedes, or maybe it’s just the Church.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Series: Penitent [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638820
Comments: 20
Kudos: 107





	Penitent

**Author's Note:**

> CW: This story includes content warnings for non-graphic vomiting, non-graphic rape ideation, discussions of rape and sexual consent, and choking as an act of physical violence.

Two weeks before they march on Derdriu, she neglects to take her sleeping medicine and dreams of maps. There will be the city, walled and defended by cavalry, archers, and warriors wielding axes. Next to the city will be a port, from the docks of which she anticipates reinforcements as well. The vast majority of the Imperial Army is already occupied defending the monastery and the northern borders, including the newly captured territory of Myrddin. The ones who will be taking the city are the Imperial elite: slow-moving heavy infantry, mages, and archers. They must whittle the enemy down from afar, then sweep in and take care of the rest. Speed, she thinks in her sleep, they need speed. Reinforcements will be approaching from inland, and possibly by ship.

In her dreams, in her mind’s eye, she sees the ships, the bridges linking them from one end of the city to another.

They won’t take the city, she thinks. They’ll be outmanned; Claude will overwhelm them with sheer numbers. There must be wyvern riders; Claude rides one. They’ll be circling the city, circling the ships, the skies alive with hellfire and lightning. She thinks of the worst-case scenario: reinforcements arrive and engage them before they can reach him.

In her dreams, she’s standing at the docks at the mouth of the fortress where Claude is issuing orders. She’s surrounded by enemy archers, unprotected. The wood is slick and the air metallic with blood, and Claude’s wyvern rises out from the fortress and takes aim at her throat. Hubert pushes her out of the way, but the arrow swerves around him and pierces through her neck.

When she lands on the ground, it’s not with a _thud_ , but feather-soft. And the blood that pools on the floor keeps growing and growing, and she yanks at the shaft as if she would survive if she could only pull it out, and Hubert is begging her to wait— _“Your Majesty, please, the healers are coming”_ —and in the distance, Claude is flying away, triumphant, and beside her, she expects Linhardt, Manuela, or even Dorothea, but it’s not, this time, it’s…

It’s no one.

Edelgard turns away, refusing aid, and chokes and bleeds and chokes.

She’d rather die, she realizes, than accept that person’s help.

* * *

Edelgard wakes before the dawn. She scrubs her hands and face with water, hoping the shock of the cold will do enough to wake her up. There’s a chill in her room—it’s the Pegasus Moon, of course there is—and the air is cold; the walls are cold; everything she touches is cold. She pulls a dressing gown out of her drawers in the dark, and dons it, and belts it around the waist. It’s fur-lined and blood-red, brocaded in black at the sleeves and in gold at the front and the hems. It falls to her ankles, and makes her look short. Her hair, still in its braid, is mussed from sleep.

She pins it at the nape of her neck, unwilling to look anything but bedraggled, and then leaves.

Few people are awake at this hour, and if they are, they’re either too tired or too nervous to approach her. She departs from the dormitories and heads straight for the cathedral, which, ruined as it is, has been quite drafty and inhospitable in the wintertime. They’ve cleared the rubble from the interior, but she refuses to set aside the resources to have it entirely rebuilt. Several of the stained glass windows remain intact, and in the half-light they project eerie images on the marble floors, scenes of miracles, of dragons, of war. There is no altar. Most of the precious objects that belong to the cathedral—chalices and tabernacles, symbols of the Church—have been long since looted from the monastery.

Still, there are those who come here to worship. Or, at least, there’s one.

Edelgard places a hand on the arm of one of the long wooden pews. No one else is here. A thin dagger lies hidden in her right sleeve.

She always comes prepared.

Her companion is kneeling in the pew, facing the direction of where the altar would be, with hands folded in silent prayer.

She feels…

She doesn’t know what she feels. Frustration? Contempt? It is not magnanimity, for certain. She doesn’t know why she thought Mercedes would be here. She’s devout; it’s a church; that makes sense. The sky has gone from blue to purple, and soon it will be red. She thinks of bleeding out on the cobblestone with an arrow lodged in her neck, of Claude flying into a stagnant gray sun.

The chill, she realizes, is gone.

Mercedes stands and turns to face her. She smiles, but it’s a tacked-on sort of thing, her default expression. “Good morning, Your Majesty.”

Jeritza. That’s why she’s here, isn’t it? She calls him Emile, his birth name, from when he lived in Bartels. It’s the only reason.

“Mercedes.” Edelgard studies her face. Mercedes is taller than her by a fair bit. She’s difficult to read, but Edelgard has her marked as “depressed.” Most people in this war are ruined emotionally one way or another; Edelgard herself is no exception. She’s never received healing from Mercedes, personally, but she’s heard plenty of stories about her impeccable bedside manner, her selflessness, her patience, her _virtue_.

Something twists in her gut.

“We haven’t talked much, have we?” she asks.

Hubert hasn’t put a hit on her yet, and that’s about as much knowledge as is required of her. If he considers Mercedes trustworthy, if he hasn’t disappeared her yet, then it’s of no concern to her whatever else Mercedes might do. There are plenty of people like that—the professor recruited them, perhaps, or they left their homelands for personal reasons.

Edelgard rubs her neck. “I suppose not.”

What do they have in common? Hardly anything. Mercedes was just about everywhere during their time at the academy; if she wasn’t in the dining hall helping with meal preparation, then she was in the greenhouse watering the plants; if she wasn’t in either of those places she was washing the bedsheets from the infirmary and scrubbing bedpans. She seemed restless, in a way that Edelgard found uncomfortably familiar, so she tended to avoid her.

“I don’t see you in the chapel often. I don’t assume you came here to pray?” she chuckles.

Edelgard’s mouth twists into a frown. Mercedes is standing at the far edge of the pew; she sits as far away as possible. She feels like a child in her long, velvet robe. Her legs dangle off the edge of the seat. Her feet will touch the floor only if she bends them. Rhea is so tall and so imposing in comparison, and what is Edelgard but short, and angry, and spiteful. Mercedes reminds her of Rhea, a little, but without her air of condescension, her unearthly presence. Mercedes still seems fragile, still human. Like if Edelgard severed her neck blood would still come gushing out instead of smoke.

“I came here to see you.” She says it, because it’s true. “You came here because you were looking for your brother, correct?”

She tilts her head. “I suppose. I haven’t seen him in a long time. He’s older, and much taller—when I last saw him, before I came to the monastery, he was still so young. Those people did something to him, didn’t they?”

Edelgard breaks eye contact. “Yes.”

“Oh, but his tastes haven’t changed. He still enjoys sweets. It’s comforting to know that I still have that much to give him.”

“Mm.”

The smile finally drops from her face. Her expression darkens. Edelgard can see the family resemblance now, when she looks like this.

“That answer doesn’t satisfy you, does it?”

“No,” said Edelgard. “I understand completely. Family is… They’re irreplaceable. I can’t imagine how you felt when you realized it was really him.”

“Oh.” She smiles a bit. “I’m glad.”

“But, even knowing what I intend to do, you still come here to the church to pray.” Edelgard looks at her. “To whom?”

“To the goddess. For protection. And, well,” she chuckles again, “it’s force of habit, I suppose. The church is still here, so I go.”

“We’re going to… No, you were there when we stormed the monastery. You know we plan to defeat the Knights of Seiros.”

“Edelgard.” Mercedes blinks. “I know. This is war. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

“Then… Why?” Edelgard gestures at their surroundings. “Why go? Why stay? I understand the desire to be near your brother, but we’re… I don’t know what form the Church of Seiros might take if we succeed. When we succeed. It won’t be…”

“It won’t be the same, no.” She nods. “But really, what will have changed by then?”

Edelgard is quiet. She thinks. Not the geography—nor the political landscape. The people? That doesn’t sound like a Mercedes answer. Or does it? She isn’t sure. In her heart, Edelgard wants to reply with, “Fódlan. Everything. _Me,_ ” and then it strikes her.

_Just a child in a housecoat—_

“Then,” she replies, “what this war means to you is…”

The conclusion she draws disturbs her, even though she tells herself she should have expected it.

“You didn’t have to pick a side,” says Edelgard. “You could have…” She doesn’t know why she’s trying to defend her.

“Who will protect me?”

Then, Edelgard is silent. She could have asked the same of herself.

“Who?” Mercedes asks again. “It’s a lot of responsibility on you, I understand. I wouldn’t say that I’m proud of the decision that I made. But I’m not so naive as to think that I would have been safe had I not made it, either. Nothing is safe during wartime. Not even churches. Call them ‘sacred’ all you’d like, but they aren’t unassailable. They’re buildings.”

She swallows. The phlegm feels thick in her throat.

“I found my happiness here, in a church. Perhaps I wouldn’t call it ‘salvation,’” she smiles again, and it’s looking faker by the minute, “but… What’s the harm? Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t say that—”

“Enough.” Edelgard looks away. She’s hardly worthy of Mercedes’s trust. Her hopes. Her faith. She isn’t worthy at all. They aren’t at the academy anymore. These aren’t games. This is real. The decisions she’s making have consequences. The deaths on her hands are permanent. “Am I…?”

Mercedes looks at her. “Hm?”

She stares at her hands. They look foreign to her, not hers, not hands.

Does she really think she’s better than the goddess, to go and declare war on the Church? The Immaculate One—if Rhea is indeed the same one—has lived for centuries. Is humanity really any better than the Nabateans? Than the clergy? The Church has reigned for over a millennium. Who is she to say that she knows any better?

“I didn’t take this from you,” she whispers under her breath.

“Edelgard?”

“The Church, I mean,” she says, looking at her, wide-eyed and panicked, “your faith, the things you care about—if I… If I do this, then what’s left?”

She smiles sadly. “Well, that’s your decision to make. Isn’t it?”

“Mercedes…”

The sky is red, and bleeding, she’s bleeding, and Mercedes is painted in it, as blood-soaked as a martyr—

“Hsss…”

Her neck is soft in Edelgard’s grasp, and the noises that Edelgard coaxes from her throat are gentle, pliant. Mercedes’s hands wrap around her fingers—she squeezes, hesitates, squeezes, feels the bob of Mercedes’s throat under her thumb as she swallows—and just as she thinks Mercedes might try to pry them away, her fingers caress Edelgard’s knuckles, instead.

She gasps. “You have to do it… harder…”

Then she smiles at her.

Edelgard is strong enough to strangle her to death. She imagines pinning her down and choking her against the floor, knees on either side of her hips, squeezing her neck until she stops fighting, until she stops moving or breathing at all. She wouldn’t resist. She imagines doing something violent. To the corpse. To her neck. She imagines—Mercedes is so _soft_ , how did she ever end up on the battlefield—and then Mercedes stops making noise and she lets go and Mercedes is coughing, hacking, pushing her away and massaging her throat. Her eyes are wild.

Edelgard covers her mouth. Her gaze finds the marble floor, stares at it. The sunlight is turning orange.

She doesn’t look at her—can’t—is running out of the cathedral in a frenzy and knows she’s making a scene, and she doesn’t stop until she’s safe inside her own dorm room, pressed up against the wooden door, alone.

Edelgard feels her own neck. She hears a knock, composes herself.

“Not now, Hubert.”

His voice is muffled through the door. “What shall I tell your generals?”

“That I am not to be disturbed for another hour, at least.” She knows that he can hear the roughness in her voice. It’s so obvious.

“Understood.”

Then he’s gone. Edelgard sinks to her knees. Her robe sags off of her shoulders. Her braid is unraveling at her neck. Her body feels so hot. No amount of cold air could possibly help. She’d need an ice bath, at this point.

She undoes the tie holding her braid together, untwists her hair until it splays out at her back. She pulls off her robe. She feels sick. She feels wrong.

Why did she… Why did _they_ … She runs her fingers through her hair. They smell like lavender. Edelgard gags, sucks in a breath. Her skin is damp and her heart is hammering.

Hubert. Hubert has gone to inform the generals of her delay. All she can think about is him.

She waits, and waits, until he knocks on her door again.

“Your Majesty.”

And then she opens the door, and lets him in.

* * *

“You said you recently discovered a breakthrough in your studies of faith magic.”

Edelgard is sprawled across Dorothea’s bed while Dorothea braids her hair, a week before Derdriu. It’s as if nothing’s changed. Edelgard still puts her head in her lap, and Dorothea still lets her. She used to smell like roses. Now she smells like nothing at all.

“Ah,” Dorothea says, as she works Edelgard’s hair into plaits. “After the professor came back. So, recently.”

“What changed?”

“The need for it. I mean, the need for healing.” Dorothea is quiet for a moment, and then she continues.

She’s so warm.

“I’ve always had a knack for black magic—it was what I used to defend myself. When times were harder. I always knew I had this power inside of me, and it made me feel strong. But now…” her fingers pause, “now I know that I’m strong. I don’t have to feel that way anymore.”

“Mm.” Edelgard turns and nuzzles into her side. Like a cat.

“I think I’ve always been afraid to be… compassionate.” Dorothea squeezes her shoulder thoughtlessly. “I’ve always made a show of being indomitable—otherwise people would try to take advantage of me.”

Something about the way she says that makes Edelgard hold her breath.

“But that’s not what the world needs.”

Edelgard pushes herself up off the bed and looks at her. “Oh?”

“No,” says Dorothea, and then she sighs and notices something in her hair and starts to undo it again. She pushes Edelgard gently back down. “Most people aren’t… you, Edie, during wartime. Most people are just struggling to get by. I noticed that. Sure, some of us might be fighting, but the people who are caught up in it…”

“Mm,” Edelgard says again. Dorothea undoes the other braid, tangling her fingers in Edelgard’s hair to straighten it. So much for that, then.

“I wanted to help them.”

“So do I,” says Edelgard, “but I’m terrible at it.” She sits up.

“You’re not all that familiar with black magic, either, though, are you?”

“Practically speaking, no.”

“Black magic is easier to grasp than white magic. Something about… matter, or… energy…” Dorothea waves her hand. “Anyway, I wanted to help them, so I studied it.”

“That’s it?” she asks. “But I’ve studied it down to the marrow. Literally.”

Dorothea snorts. “But do you feel it?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Do I… What?”

“It’s called empathy, Edie, darling. Do you feel it, when other people suffer? Can you imagine their pain?”

She blinks. “I’m not sure I…” She looks down. Of course she knows what empathy is, but how is that related to faith magic? You don’t have to know how it feels to have a broken bone in order to mend it, do you?

“Edie.” Dorothea places her hands on Edelgard’s shoulders and looks at her very seriously. “I don’t think it would help you if you did.”

“Wouldn’t it?” She thinks again. “Or are you saying this because…”

“How could you give orders, if you truly did? Knowing their fears? Knowing their guilt? Knowing their pain? Perhaps it’s better that you don’t.”

She thinks about choking Mercedes, and her hands rise up to rub at her neck again.

“Speaking of which…” Dorothea glances over at the doorway. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? There’s only a week left to prepare for the next battle.”

Edelgard fixes her with a stare. “Do I?”

Dorothea giggles into her hand. “You’re so spoiled,” she says.

 _Why_ , she thinks, _because I don’t have to think about it?_ Of course she sees the world in terms of maps and statistics. A death toll is only a number to her because it has to be. She can’t be distracted by the fact that one person lost a loved one, that one person feels guilt at taking another person’s life. She has no time for that.

But she does have time for this.

“Do you think it’s unfair?” Edelgard asks.

“What’s unfair? That you aren’t attending every single meeting Hubert tries to force into your overburdened schedule?” She snorts. “If it were up to me,” she wraps her arms around Edelgard’s waist, and pulls them both onto their backs on the bed, “we wouldn’t be doing any of this imperial-warfare-administrative-government business at all.”

“You have no imagination.”

Dorothea laughs out loud at that, and then lets her go. “I have plenty. But unlike you, I don’t use it to dream about overthrowing the political establishment.”

Edelgard is honestly surprised. “Not even a little?”

She grins. “Only if you’re in charge.” She pokes her in the cheek. “And only because you’re so cute.”

* * *

Derdriu.

She’s right about the port. They have only a small number of wyvern riders who can match Nader’s. Petra struggles, but she does not falter. She does not dwell on how chilling it is to see Lysithea so readily take aim at her own countrymen, or how, in another universe, she might have defended them instead. Jeritza cuts down everything in his way. So does Felix.

By the time they’ve boarded the Almyran ships, reinforcements have already begun pouring out of Derdriu. Wyverns plunge screeching from the skies into the water. Petra weaves, ducks around them; dark magic blots out the sun. But it works. Nader retreats, and they seize the Almyran ships and prepare to take the fort at the edge of the city. They’re outnumbered, the wyvern riders report, at least four to one. But the skies are burnt with cinders and streaked with lightning. Edelgard and her troops move under cover of smoke. They always greet their enemies this way, as if summoned by the fires of hell itself.

Surely there is an army awaiting them at Derdriu, but Claude?

When he swoops up to strike, it’s magic that ends him, as it ends almost everyone in their path. His wyvern crashes to the ground, and his face is covered in blood. At least a few of his bones are broken. Edelgard wrenches Failnaught out of his hands, seizes him by the hair.

He winks at her.

She raises Aymr high into the air to strike—and an arrow sings past her face, slicing open her cheek. Hubert is immediately at her side. She does not let go of Claude.

She punches him in the face, instead, kicks him mercilessly in the stomach. She feels like she’s about to vomit. He accepts her terms of surrender.

The rest is a blur of bureaucracy and dead bodies. She knows Mercedes was there, to be at her brother’s side. She knows Dorothea stayed behind with Manuela to help the injured and dying. Linhardt heals her face, the new skin a stripe of pale pink. Sometime before they leave, she vomits into the water, with Hubert right beside her. He offers her a cloth to wipe her mouth when her stomach begins to clench around nothing. She is unstoppable—she must be—and this war will soon be over.

In the evening, within the clearing where they have set up camp with Count Bergliez, she stares up at the sky and thinks about what Dorothea told her, about being too afraid to be compassionate. She wonders if she is the same. Perhaps it is hatred that compels her in part, but it can’t be hatred alone. Or can it?

She touches her neck again, like a tic. Then she massages it.

It isn’t. She just doesn’t have the time for compassion. She has to be this way.

She grips her throat.

And what if she was compassionate? Would she regret her actions then? Is that why she’s afraid? Because she might be wrong? There has to be a future beyond the current system. There must be something better, because all she can see if there isn’t is despair.

She thinks about Mercedes, and the subsequent anxiety has nowhere to go. She thinks about how soft she was, how different she was from wielding an axe or a sword. She bites down on her tongue.

Dorothea calls her “spoiled.”

Maybe she is.

* * *

Everyone is rightly exhausted after Derdriu. There’s a modest celebration in the dining hall, with plenty of drink. One of the soldiers is so inebriated that he doesn’t recognize Edelgard and tries to flirt with her, and Edelgard has to stop Hubert from trying to injure him in retaliation. Edelgard doesn’t participate in the celebrations—she’s too busy planning their route to Arianrhod, studying maps, perusing reports. The professor warns her not to overtax herself, sometime after the incident with the rat in her room. Hubert brings her lavender tea instead of her usual bergamot, and when she recognizes the smell she almost hurls the teapot to the ground.

Although he has the tea immediately replaced, she finds it laughable. She knows it couldn’t be his fault; she isn’t sure if he even knows what happened in the cathedral that day. And yet, she’s afraid. Maybe she isn’t capable of kindness. Maybe there won’t be anything left if she gives up her hatred. Maybe Mercedes would snuff her out like a flame, trying to support her, trying to help her. Maybe it’s too late to salvage herself at all. She’ll burn up in the atmosphere like a shooting star, or a candle at the end of its wick. Maybe there won’t be anything left to her once this war is over.

But maybe that’s for the best. She’s living on borrowed time, as is. This is her goal, her sacrifice, her dream. If she does not live to see the fruits of her labor, what difference does it make? She knows that she is only doing what is good, what is right. She is placing humanity’s future back into human hands, as it should be. This was never for her own benefit. This is for the future of Fódlan. Her place in the world after this, her severely shortened lifespan, her soundness of mind—none of it matters. Let them talk. And while they talk, the world will have already changed around them.

Before they leave for the Kingdom, she makes plans to apologize to Mercedes. To neglect to do so would reflect poorly on her character as well as on the world she intends to create, and every day that passes only intensifies her feelings of guilt. Surely it was a mad impulse, spurred on by stress and exhaustion, and nothing else.

She’s lying to herself. It wasn’t.

“Rrgh!”

She crumples up the paper on her desk, and tosses it into the wastepaper basket. That’s enough for the day; the candles are burning low, and she hasn’t gotten anywhere since she started. A written apology seems insufficient given the magnitude of her transgression, but she can’t think of any other way to express herself without…

A knock on her bedroom door yanks her out of her thoughts.

“What is it, Hubert? I’m—”

“I’m not Hubert,” Lysithea replies irritably. “Though if you’re not in the mood to talk, then I’ll just leave these here.”

She sags over her desk, sighing. “My apologies, Lysithea. Stay there; I’ll be over in a moment.”

She gathers up her loose hair into a bun and ties it hastily at her neck, and then pushes herself out of her seat and hurries to the door.

Lysithea is still in her day clothes, although it must be well past midnight. In her hand is a tray and a couple of pastries. In the moonlight, she looks ethereal, as though Edelgard is being visited by a ghost. Ironic, she thinks, given how emphatically Lysithea hates them.

Lysithea gives her a once-over. Her brow furrows in disapproval. “You look like a disaster,” she says, as brutally honest as ever. She glances over Edelgard’s shoulder to the light inside her room. “Have you been writing again?”

“It’s nothing.” She waves her hand dismissively. Then she looks down at the tray. “What’s this?”

“Leftovers from the celebration.” Lysithea pushes the tray at her. “Dorothea says you haven’t been eating enough.” Then she cocks an eyebrow and stares her down. “Though how she knows that is beyond me.”

Edelgard takes the tray and, after a moment’s hesitation, turns around and places it on her desk. “Make yourself comfortable,” she calls behind her, and she hears Lysithea shuffle inside.

“You should eat them while they’re still fresh.”

“I will. I don’t suppose you want to watch me while I do that?”

Lysithea is quiet.

She can’t keep the exasperation out of her voice. “Who sent you? Was it Hubert? Manuela?”

Lysithea sits on the bed and primly crosses her legs at the ankles. “I sent myself, actually. I would hope you think me capable of at least that much.”

“As if I needed another person fussing over my eating habits,” she mutters under her breath. “Who made these, by the way?” One name immediately comes to mind.

“Mercedes.”

Edelgard suppresses a groan. This is a sign from the goddess, isn’t it? Some beneficent entity from the great beyond is trying to convince her to lay down her arms and repent.

She won’t, of course.

“She was in the kitchen the whole day. What did Bernadetta call it? ‘Stress baking.’ They don’t taste bad at all, though. In fact, I’d argue that they’re quite delectable.”

“I’m sure,” she replies, hurriedly enough to draw her friend’s suspicion. “I mean,” she says, holding Lysithea’s gaze, “I’d never call her baking skills into question.”

Lysithea frowns. “Then why not try one?”

“I wouldn’t want to be rude.”

“I don’t consider it rude at all to eat in front of me. Are you…” she fidgets against the bedspread, “are you feeling well? I realize that must be in a relative sense, but regardless of that… you’re not ill, are you?” Then she rises from her seat.

“It’s…” Well, it’s too late to tell her that it’s nothing. “It’s exhaustion.”

She looks unconvinced. “Perhaps eating something will make you feel better. It’s… It’s not the effects of your Crests,” she looks genuinely worried as she approaches her, “is it?”

Edelgard almost laughs in relief. “No,” she replies, “nothing like that.”

She can’t say that she feels any better about the alternative, granted.

Then Lysithea veers toward the desk. “I’d hate for these to go to waste.”

The degree to which the thought of consuming the pastries simultaneously appeals to and repulses her would be fascinating, were she not worried that Lysithea might eat them herself if she leaves them there long enough.

Edelgard stands up. “All right. I’ll try one, if you insist.” She plucks one of the pastries from the tray and looks it over. The dough is layered, like a croissant, and there’s purple jam in the middle. It smells faintly of mixed fruit and butter. Then she puts a corner in her mouth and takes a bite.

There’s something to be said about good pastries. This one isn’t deserving of the word at all.

“Mm…”

The butter hits her palate first. It’s creamy, baked into every layer of dough, lightly salted and unspeakably rich. Another bite has her tasting fruit, chased by some other, fuller flavor—wine, maybe? They certainly have enough of it. It’s sweet, but it’s tart and heady and complex, and every bite has her tasting something different, until she realizes when her fingers touch her mouth that she’s downed the entire thing.

“Told you it was good,” Lysithea huffs.

Edelgard licks her lips. “I’ll have to ask her for the recipe.”

“Or, you could hire her,” she suggests.

“Ah, yes,” Edelgard folds her arms and leans back against the desk, “I must eventually find someone to fill the vacancy in our Imperial Baking department.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” Lysithea mumbles.

“I’ll let you know if there are any openings,” she says, turning to her with a half-smile. Then she looks away. “We’ll be fighting the Kingdom, next, and the Church. Claude was gracious enough to accept defeat, but we can’t expect that from Dimitri or Rhea. How did they seem? The soldiers, I mean. Were they in high spirits?”

“Hmm?” Lysithea looks down. “Well, I witnessed the usual buffoonery that accompanies any event in which there’s a surplus of alcohol. I realize how important it is for you to keep up appearances, but most of the men—or boys, really—assume that since you’re not out there celebrating, you must be a self-flagellating stick in the mud.”

Accurate, she thinks.

“Holing yourself up in your room like this isn’t doing your reputation any favors. But apart from that, it doesn’t seem that anyone really wants to think about the future, at least more than a few days ahead. War is bitter work.”

Edelgard lets out a breathy laugh. “We’re making progress, and yet all I can think about are the ways in which we might possibly fail.”

She shrugs. “It’s better to be prepared.”

“I worry about who I might become.”

Lysithea looks up. “Hmm?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing. I should turn in for the night. Thank you for the pastries, Lysithea.”

“Oh.” Lysithea takes a few steps back, as if she’s unsure of what to do. “You should thank Mercedes.”

She laughs again. “I suppose I must.”

Lysithea says her goodbyes and then lingers at the doorway, staring back at Edelgard as if she wants to say something.

Edelgard fixes her with a stern look. “Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

“No, well…” she looks down at the floor, “there’s always a thousand different things on your mind, I know. But whatever you’re feeling right now, it’s all right.”

“Lysithea?”

“There’s no need to push yourself any more than you already are. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Whoever you are, it’s already enough. So, don’t make the mistake that Rhea did and assume that everyone is looking for a savior.” Lysithea sets her mouth in a firm line. “We’re not.”

“Thank you,” says Edelgard, and watches the door close behind her.

* * *

Randolph and Ladislava leave for the Kingdom the following week, after hours of heated debate. Edelgard knows that once she sends them on this mission, there’s very little chance that they’ll return from it. Despite pressure from Lord Arundel’s forces, the Church and the Kingdom have a clear advantage in the west, and not once in the last five years has the Empire managed to penetrate the Kingdom’s borders. But they must hold the line against Rhea—no matter what the cost.

Initial reports from the northern border suggest fewer Church troops than they anticipated. She sends Shamir to scout the western Empire, convinced that a smaller force must have slipped past enemy lines. Days pass without any word. Hubert advises her to be patient and hold their position at the monastery, but by the third day, she’s desperate to move out. She knows that they’re planning something, and she knows that if she doesn’t catch them in time, her failure could cost them this entire campaign.

When Shamir sends word that the western Empire is free of Rhea’s troops, Edelgard and Hubert both immediately realize what has happened.

“Close the gates! I want all of our archers stationed at the northern wall. Hubert, summon the Eagles to the war room for an emergency meeting. They must be approaching from the woods; we must not allow them to take the monastery.”

Hubert’s estimates give them about a day to prepare. Felix returns from his scouting mission with a dead soldier in Church colors and a warning that dozens more lie in wait.

“My time is worth more than this,” he snarls, but it’s valuable intelligence, nonetheless.

At daybreak, they take the fight to the forests bordering Charon. They only see footsoldiers, at first, but in the distance, Bernadetta spots pegasus knights and wyvern riders closing in on the monastery. Once the initial wave is defeated, the professor leads them deeper into the forests where mages and assassins led by Flayn are waiting in ambush. She doesn’t want to fight them. It’s almost too easy.

Then—Edelgard realizes—it was meant to be.

Hubert’s warnings arrive too late. The trees explode into flames around them as Flayn retreats. Edelgard’s eyes water and her lungs burn as Ferdinand helps her up onto his mount, and they gallop out of the forest into the clearing where Seteth and his men have made camp. Their numbers are thinning as they stray further away from the monastery, but they have the professor at their side and Dorothea preparing a spell behind them, and not far in the distance she hears Petra’s mount give a triumphant cry.

_Fucking wyvern riders again…_

Edelgard’s positioning herself on the front lines was a deliberate choice. Seteth is circling them from above, and he knows that if she dies, then it will all be over. She dismounts from Ferdinand’s horse and stares up at Seteth, even as Ferdinand eyes her warily.

“Edelgard?”

“I’ll be fine.”

An arrow flies through the air from the west, narrowly missing Seteth and his mount. Petra and her soldiers follow shortly after, engaging with the other wyvern riders in the air. Seteth ignores them. Instead, he swerves and dives straight at her.

She trusts Dorothea. She holds Aymr up, bracing herself for the attack. The spell has to hit. It has to, or she won’t survive; _it has to, it has to, it has to—_

It happens all at once. A white-hot flash of light crashes into Seteth’s wyvern as his lance plunges into her chest and he’s flung off, the wyvern pierced through as if a giant arrow had struck its flesh. The pain is blinding. Edelgard staggers backwards; she hears shouting; Dorothea is _screaming_ , “Idiot! You idiot! That wasn’t the plan!” She gasps for air as she hits the ground, as if all the breath has been sucked from her lungs. Seteth’s lance is protruding from her body; this is real; it’s so much worse than her dream; and her chest is soaked—

“Shut up, Ferdinand! I know what I’m doing, you stupid fucking windbag…”

Dorothea presses her hand over Edelgard’s eyes, and then her vision dims, and goes black.

* * *

Edelgard dreams about her mother.

She’s in the palace gardens, hiding behind a bush and peering between the leaves. Her mother is seated alone on a bench, watching her quietly. Her eyes are the color of lavender. Three children run past them, laughing. Edelgard can name all of them: Dietrich, Gerhard, Marta. Marta is the tallest and eldest, yanking up her skirts as she chases after the other two. Gerhard is small and quick; Dietrich is heavy-set and gasping. Gerhard, blond and blue-eyed, winks at her as he runs by. Marta calls out to her, _“El! Tell your brothers to behave.”_

Edelgard peeks out from the brush, and then awkwardly shuffles to the side, so Marta can look at her. Marta bends down and presses a hand to her forehead. _“You feel a little warm. Are you sick?”_ Then she turns around, perhaps to ask her mother something.

When Edelgard turns around, she sees Julian and Fritz, angry and adolescent, wrestling on the ground arguing with each other. Marta is holding the newest member of their family, Odilie. She sighs and passes Odilie to Edelgard. _“These boys…”_ Edelgard stares down into Odilie’s eyes, and feels sick. Tatiana is already married, and Anselm has been assigned to Fort Merceus as a general for as long as she can remember. Brunhilde must be at piano lessons. That leaves… she thinks… Clemens. Clemens is only a year younger than her, so he can’t be far.

She turns around and keeps walking, and her surroundings grow steadily darker until the walls are illuminated by torchlight. The stone is damp, and now she’s descending the stairs. She doesn’t want to go any further—her knees begin to shake—but Clemens is missing. She begins calling for him. _“Clemens? Clemens!”_ Clemens was always sickly; Edelgard worries about him. Maybe he got lost, she tells herself. He shouldn’t be here, so far below the palace. No one should be here.

She passes prison cells, shackles chained to the wall. Every instinct is begging her to turn around and go back, but when she does, she sees a locked door, stopping her from returning to her mother, to her siblings. She turns around and feels a chill settle in the pit of her stomach, but Clemens is here now, she knows. They took him. He’s next. She wants to leave—they have to leave; Marta and Gerhard and all of them; they’re killing them, and Clemens is next; no one’s survived the experiments, and they’re all going to die; they have to escape.

Her feet lead her into a dark corridor. She can no longer see anything around her, except for a grate in the ceiling, and a light that shines down through it.

Clemens is strapped to a table. She doesn’t want to see this; she begs herself to wake up, to do anything but this.

 _“No, no, no,”_ she begs, _“not this again, not this again, please no, no more, not again please…”_

But she can’t control what’s happening, and she stops in front of his body and looks down, and Clemens is bisected from his throat to his crotch and his skin is peeled back and she can see every bone and every organ raw and red and exposed in the light and screams and screams and screams.

* * *

She’s screaming when she wakes up.

It’s dark, and she can’t make sense of anything until she feels someone rush to her side and envelop her in a tight embrace. Her screams fade into gasps, and then sobs, and then whimpers, and only when she tangles her fingers in the woman’s hair does she recognize who she is.

“It’s just me, Edie.”

She gasps, sucking in huge breaths as if she can’t get enough air into her lungs. Pain radiates on her left side from her breast to her hip, and a good half of her torso feels swollen and tender. She buries her face in Dorothea’s chest.

“Wha… Who…”

“Shh.” Dorothea strokes the back of her head and begins to hum, and her eyes well with tears again.

Seteth. The injury. It all comes back to her, little by little. She ascended the throne with the help of Imperial loyalists and started a war against the Church of Seiros in the hopes of replacing the old system of nobility. Her ten siblings and her father are all dead. She hasn’t seen her birth mother in years. She attended the Academy and met Dorothea. She met the professor. They have allies from the Kingdom, and the Alliance is no more. So much has happened since then.

“I ruined your gown,” Edelgard says hoarsely.

Dorothea laughs. “It’s OK.” She holds onto Edelgard as if she never wants to let go. “Hubert is managing the army in your absence. Ferdinand is dealing with domestic affairs. You’ll be briefed in the morning, but…” She lets go and looks at her in the dark, and then pulls her into another hug. “Just rest, for now.”

“Who healed… Was it you?” Edelgard clasps a hand to Dorothea’s back. The injury must have been at least as harmful as it felt, if not more. Dorothea is new to healing, so it must have been Linhardt who closed the wound, or Manuela, or…

“Mercedes. It… was Mercedes. I couldn’t—not when it was that complicated.”

Edelgard groans. “Why her?”

“Anyone else, and you would have died. If Linhardt had returned to the monastery earlier, we could have asked him, but he was still trying to help Caspar rescue people caught in the fire. And Manuela wouldn’t have been able to close your wound in time to save you. It had to be her.”

Her breathing has evened out by now, but it still isn’t enough, and she feels weak. She presses her forehead against Dorothea’s shoulder, incredulous. “You were looking after me this whole time?”

“I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if something happened to you.” Then she notices the expression on Edelgard’s face. “I’m sure if Hubert didn’t trust me with your life he would have done something about it by now. Your sleeping medicine’s on the table if you need it.” She pulls away from her and places her hands gently on Edelgard’s shoulders. “Will you be OK by yourself? I can ask for him.”

 _Stay_ , is the first response that comes to mind, for all that it would be wildly inappropriate. She still can’t wrap her mind around exactly why Dorothea is here—she has her suspicions, though none of them sit well with her—but she doesn’t feel like receiving a lecture from Hubert or dragging him away from his duties right now. Mercedes is completely out of the question.

“What did she say? Mercedes, I mean.”

Dorothea looks away. “Mm… She said you would need a few more sessions of treatment.” Her eyes stray back to Edelgard’s chest. “I can believe it, honestly. It was bad. But once Ferdinand got his head out of his ass and someone was able to track down Mercedes, it was… manageable. Hubert seemed entirely prepared for the possibility that we might lose you. Though, thankfully, it didn’t come to that. I’m sure he would’ve given anything to be in your place.”

Edelgard wets her lips. If death is going to be such a constant companion, then she has to stop hiding it. “I have to tell you something.”

“Yes?” She looks at her. “What is it?”

What was this ever about, really? Guilt? Fear? Selfishness? Even a week ago, given this exact situation, her solution would have been to carry on precisely as she was. She was prepared to make sacrifices. She was prepared to do anything.

It never occurred to her that anyone might miss her.

“You shouldn’t… I mean… You’re making a mistake.”

Dorothea looks insulted, which was admittedly her intention no matter how much it pains her to see it. “I beg your pardon? Are you telling me I should have left you on the ground to _die_?”

“I’m not who you think I am.”

“You’re not making any sense. What do you mean?”

“I tried to kill her, Dorothea. In the cathedral, before Derdriu.”

“Kill who?”

“Mercedes.”

Dorothea is beyond shock, by now. “Is that why you’re acting like this?” she hisses. “Your guilt over throwing a temper tantrum?”

She takes a deep breath. “You don’t—”

“Understand?” She stands up. “What do I not understand? Your… your mental instability? Your savior complex? Your complete and utter lack of emotional awareness? Of course I understand why you did it. You were upset at yourself for wanting to destroy the institution that had given her entire life purpose and felt so guilty at the fact that she didn’t blame you or try to retaliate or show any signs of distress that you took it all out on her because she was there and you were angry and the only way you know how to fix things is by destroying them.” Her chest is heaving. “I know that. I know that! If you had been sincere about trying to kill her she would have been dead. I try to save your life, and you repay me by telling me you would rather be dead because you can’t fathom being indebted to someone who most likely hates you by now. Frankly, if she does, you deserve it.”

Edelgard swallows.

“You’re a fucking piece of shit, Edelgard.” She paces the room back and forth in restless, rigid strides. “Of course you tried to hurt her. Of course you did. So don’t tell me I don’t understand, because I do, because I think about you every fucking day, and the only thing that surprises me anymore is that you think you’re full of secrets when you’re an open fucking book, and it isn’t fair that you get to be this way while I have to sit here and suffer and pretend for your sake that I don’t know anything when I love you and would take you just as you are and completely destroy myself in the process.” Tears stream down her face. “This is who you are, Edelgard. And if that’s too difficult for you to accept, then perhaps you shouldn’t be in this position, after all. Leave the fighting to someone else. Don’t be the reason so many of our friends are dead.”

“I can’t,” says Edelgard.

“Then don’t tell me that I made a mistake, because this is exactly what I expected from you.”

“Impossible,” she breathes. “You would have lost all love for me had you seen what I had done to her that day.”

“You underestimate me,” she says with a shuddering laugh. “What did you do, then?” She turns to Edelgard with a sneer. “Did you rape her?”

“No.” She looks down.

“Did you want to?”

Silence.

The words catch in her throat, but no matter how much she wants to let them out, they won’t go. She looks at her. The look on Dorothea’s face morphs from scorn to shock to something tantamount to horror, before quickly recomposing itself.

“Why?” she asks, in little more than a whisper.

Edelgard laughs. It hurts. “Is that not what you expected?”

She sits back down. “What were you thinking? Tell me.”

She looks back down at the floor. “That I would pin her down to the ground and then…” her face flushes in shame, “I would ruin her. She… didn’t resist. I don’t know why. Maybe she wanted to die.” She covers her face with her hands, and the memories are still so vivid. "I just tried to choke her. But…”

 _It felt good._ That’s the part she doesn’t want to admit.

“I wanted to do it. I wanted… I wanted control. I was jealous and angry, and I couldn’t stand the thought that I was responsible for her despair.” She’s shaking again. “It felt so _good_ , Dorothea,” her hands pull away from her face, “to be so selfish. To take and take and take and take, and not have to promise anything in return. I’m just like him. Just like Dimitri.”

“But you didn’t.”

Edelgard hears the question in her voice, the uncertainty. She closes her eyes. There’s an obvious answer to that, but it wouldn’t be the truth, and if anyone is deserving of the truth, it’s Dorothea. She could say that she has her dignity and that there are lines that even she wouldn’t cross, but her reasons were nothing so high-minded.

“That’s not what I wanted from her. Not really.” She looks at Dorothea, whose face is set in stone. “She learned compassion from the Church. That’s not something I could have given her. I don’t understand what it means not to hate—how she could have learned that from an institution that so obviously loathes its enemies. I wanted to take that and make it a part of me. I wanted the Church to be her.”

“Edie…”

“I didn’t want to accept that I was doing something wrong, or that I was going to hurt innocent people. I wanted to shut her up. I wanted to do something. You’re right that I felt guilty. But I was also envious. I’ll never understand how I hurt her, or why. I’ll never understand her experiences, no matter how hard I try. Even now I am possessed by this horrible, aching hunger, this yearning for answers. I feel so hollow, and I know that nothing I do will ever satisfy me.” She sucks in a shaky breath. “I wish I could say that it was nothing but guilt, but I wanted to do it. Even if her personality is nothing but a farce, I know there’s something that she has that I am missing and that I will never have.”

Dorothea is quiet for a second, and then two. The silence stretches on into what could be an eternity. Edelgard studies her face, how intently she seems to be searching for words.

“So,” she says, “then this really has nothing to do with her.”

Edelgard scoffs. “Of course not. All she’s ever done is save my life, apparently.”

Dorothea chuckles. “Of all the responses I expected from you, I can’t say that sarcasm was one of them.”

She shakes her head. “This is about as far from maudlin as I’m making it sound, but… I just wish I knew how she really felt about me. I’d be much more comfortable knowing that she hated me for hurting her and taking away the things that she loved than that she simply accepted what was happening to her as a matter of fate.”

“What about Jeritza?”

Edelgard is quiet.

“You’d tell me that it was a coincidence. Wouldn’t you? That you were only using him as a means to an end, and that you have nothing to do with their reunion.” Dorothea looks at her. “Does it hurt to know that you brought them together? Do you resent her for that, too?”

It does, and of course she does. Edelgard knows exactly how Mercedes feels in that respect, at least, thinking he was lost to her forever and then suddenly having him back in her life. They could be happy together. There’s still a chance.

Dorothea laughs again, humorlessly and quietly. “What if she were grateful for that, above all else? What might you do then?”

When Edelgard doesn’t respond, she continues, “Could you be happy for her?”

Her heart beats slow and steady, like a war drum, or a dirge. There’s a right answer and there’s a truthful answer, and she knows which Dorothea wants to hear.

“Or would you hurt them again out of spite? Tell me, Edelgard.” Her expression is agonized, and Edelgard can’t tell how much of it is genuine and how much is forced. “Tell me that there is something more to you than your hatred for these people, and for the world and everything in it.”

She looks down at her hands, and even in the meager light she can still see the weapon calluses and the old white scars. Ghosts of the distant past.

It would be so easy to close herself off and lock all her emotions away, rather than pining hopelessly after the professor or pursuing another lover knowing they would never be able to live an undisturbed life by her side. She’ll never be soft for as long as she lives. She’ll be hounded by shadows forever. She’ll tell Lysithea to pursue her dreams of a better future, but she would never allow that for herself.

Her lungs burn.

It’s almost too perfect, that they’d be giving each other second chances.

She laughs, and buries her face in her hands, doubling over and laughing louder and louder until she’s bordering on hysteria.

“E… Edelgard?”

She gasps for breath. It hurts so much, and when she tries to speak she chokes on her words. “I…! She…!” She giggles into her hands. “She might say that she saved me out of duty, but I know she did it out of spite.”

“How do you know?” Dorothea asks, and from her tone it’s obvious that she doesn’t understand.

“Because death is an escape, and if I deprived her of that chance—to die blamelessly, and to not have to make a conscious decision to do so—then she would never pass up the opportunity to do the same to me.”

Her eyes widen.

“I know what she wants,” Edelgard continues, “because she told me. She told me I wasn’t squeezing her neck hard enough. I don’t think she healed me out of duty, or compassion, or even out of fear of retaliation—she knows just how hard it is to wake up every day and tell yourself that life is still worth living, and how every instinct in your body will stop you from doing precisely what it is that you want to do. I would have killed her, and she would have loved me for it.” She holds her hand over her mouth and bends over and gags, wracked with sudden nausea. _Not in front of her, not_ on _her—_

“Let me get the chamber pot,” says Dorothea, and smiles so tightly her face might shrink into itself and disappear.

* * *

The next day is nothing but meetings. The deaths of Randolph and Ladislava are practically foothills among the mountains of news and reports she’s being fed; she approves Hubert’s plans to officially announce their intention to move on Fhirdiad while the Strike Force makes a detour to Arianrhod in the southern Kingdom. There are rebellions in Leicester. Grain shortages in Nuvelle. Lorenz has left the monastery for Gloucester to take over negotiations with Count Bergliez in Claude’s absence. Church loyalists in the capital of Enbarr are rioting in the streets. It seems practically impossible for so much to have happened in the span of a few days, but even when she’s healthy, she almost never has a moment to herself. She’s so busy that she completely forgets about her nighttime discussion with Dorothea, and when she sees Mercedes in the dining hall later that evening she thinks nothing of it.

It’s only the day after, when Hubert asks her whether she will be accompanying them to Arianrhod, that Edelgard realizes that her wounded body still has its limitations. She insists on traveling with the rest of the Strike Force—she will not be shut up in her room like an invalid—but her usefulness ends there. Her presence among the army’s rank and file has always been a matter of pride for her; she does not want to be perceived as spoiled, or soft, or weak. The army’s morale could suffer.

But she has no choice, and for once, Hubert is right to stop her from even trying to convince him.

“Manuela is adamant that you refrain from strenuous physical activity for at least the next two weeks. A lifetime’s worth of experience in medicine could not compare to the raw magical talent that Mercedes possesses. You’re lucky to even be alive.” His tone is cold, but his expression betrays his anxiety. “Thales will pay for his crimes. But it will mean nothing if you are no longer here to witness it. Swear to me that the deaths of your most trusted generals will not be in vain.”

“They won’t,” she says, and she means it.

She passes a request along to the professor to politely address with Felix the matter of his father, who will most likely be present at Arianrhod. She informs Lysithea, Linhardt, Jeritza, and a few others of her intention to lead the Strike Force on a mission at Arianrhod, but leaves the rest in the dark—including her uncle. Shamir has already been deployed to the Tailtean Plains ahead of time to scout the area, and to distract their foes. Hubert is traveling to the northwestern border of the Empire to gather intelligence.

Early reports indicate that Arianrhod is heavily guarded but otherwise isolated; all the possible reinforcements have moved north to defend the capital. Distantly, she feels as though they might truly have the advantage in this fight, but the fortress’s proximity to Arundel worries her. Even before the war began, much of the southern Kingdom had fallen under her uncle’s influence. This war might be drawing to a close, but the next is yet to come.

She hates what she’s become under his guidance, really. He made her need him. He made her feel dependent, helpless. He is nothing like the professor—she would give the world to have met the professor first and not him—but, just as the professor did, he made her who she is. Molded her into a bludgeon to be wielded against the Church. Forced her to see the world as something ugly and irredeemable. Fanned the flames of a sluggish, expensive, and all-consuming war, all for the sake of…

Well, really, it doesn’t matter what the madman wants. Nothing is worth the deaths and torture of her ten siblings, not even victory. Not even happiness. Nothing, not while he still lives. She hates him, over all else. She knows that his death won’t satisfy her, not completely, not until she knows they’re _all_ dead, but it gives her a concrete goal, something to live for after the end of the war.

Dorothea wouldn’t like that, she thinks. Dorothea would want her to live for bowls of peach sorbet and long walks in the woods, for sketches of wildlife and lively debates among friends, for staying in bed until noon and doing nothing for the rest of the day. For indolence and for pleasure. For sloth and for greed and for sin. Fattened like a pig to the slaughter, as senseless as the day she was born. She wonders what it is about Dorothea that makes Dorothea want to love her, to want things for her. She has always been taught that her desires were sinful, which has only made her want them even more.

She wonders if there is something liberating about self-denial, for how highly the Church extols it. Wanting, too, is a burden. Worldly things are temporary, but enlightenment is forever. Or, isn’t that how it goes? If she prays long enough, meditates long enough, denies all pleasures of the body, then the truth of what will satisfy her might finally appear. Some might call it “God.” Others “nirvana.” A blowing out. No flames. No heat. Just pure, solitary stillness. Not loneliness, but wholeness. Not emptiness, but fulfillment. Not the world that has to change—but her. That’s what they want her to believe.

As if the conquerors, rich and fat, gave a shit about otherworldly fulfillment.

As if the people who suffered under them were content to starve and be sick and have nothing. As if they should be happy for it, because it made them closer to the goddess. It’s easy to think that being poor is the same as being virtuous when poverty is a choice.

For most people, it isn’t.

She’s never liked the Church, but she hates it more for the ways that it glorifies suffering. Wanting is human. Wanting signals deprivation. Wanting drives innovation and creativity; want is _good_. Society didn’t develop because people were happy with what they had. People don’t live in self-satisfied vacuums. If everyone were enlightened hermits then humanity as she knew it wouldn’t even exist.

Maybe that’s the point, she thinks, sourly. Maybe Seiros never wanted them to exist.

Mercedes doesn’t spend much time outside the infirmary anymore, she’s told. She doesn’t know how Mercedes might react when she approaches her, and doubts that a mere apology would suffice. She wants to speak to her alone, but what would Mercedes think of her then? Being suicidal is not the same as being fearless. She tried to kill her once. She’s untrustworthy. A monster. She might excuse Jeritza for being her brother, but what of Edelgard?

She wishes she could have talked to her while she was still wounded and bleeding, prostrate and defenseless. Maybe then Mercedes would feel safe. And maybe Edelgard would, too.

Eventually, she relents and asks Hubert to help her arrange a meeting in one of the old second-floor offices. He sends the invitation, and Mercedes accepts.

This won’t go well, she knows that. But she has to try.

* * *

Edelgard can’t tell which is worse: the fact that Mercedes looks so openly distressed, or the fact that Edelgard is directly responsible for whatever she’s feeling regardless of whether it shows on her face or not. They’re seated on either side of the desk in what was formerly Seteth’s office. The room hasn’t seen much use since the onset of the war—it isn’t dusty as of this morning, but it is beset by a strong smell of decaying parchment, which makes her all the more unsettled despite being the one who ordered this meeting in the first place. She’s rehearsed the first few words of this meeting in her head several times, and is determined to follow the script.

Instead, upon noticing that Mercedes’s eyes dart to Hubert and back once about every thirty seconds, she asks, “Are you more comfortable with him in the room, or shall I order him out?”

She looks surprised that Edelgard even asked. “I would rather speak to you alone, if at all possible.”

She nods to Hubert, and he walks to the door and sees himself out. Mercedes watches him like a wary animal until the door shuts closed behind him, and then she turns back around.

“He’ll be standing right by the door, won’t he?” she asks.

“He’s here for your sake,” Edelgard says, maintaining eye contact, “and not for mine. If… something were to happen between us, he will ensure that no harm comes to you. He is aware of my… of the incident in the cathedral,” she murmurs, lowering her voice, “and I have instructed him to enter the room if he suspects that either of us may be in danger. I have no intention of hurting you. I knew this discussion would make you uncomfortable, so…” she glances toward the door, “you’re free to leave the room at any time. There is no consequence for doing so. On that, you have my word.”

Her expression is dour. “Why did you ask me to come here, Edelgard?”

The familiarity stings, even though Mercedes has referred to her by name many times before. Why it does now, she isn’t quite sure—she wants to believe that she’s imagining the contempt in Mercedes’s voice, the resentment in her eyes—but she swallows it downs and answers, “I wanted to apologize for the harm that I had done to you… and to thank you for treating my wounds. Though my words may ring hollow to you, and I have no delusions about your willingness to forgive my wrongdoing, know that I am truly repentant. Whatever reparations may be in order, I will do everything in my power to see them through.”

Her face is a blank mask—one that Edelgard recognizes well. “I haven’t the words,” she says, and her tone is taut, brittle. She sounds as close to angry as Edelgard has ever heard her. “You saved Emile, and you brought us together, but you hate me, don’t you? You resent my happiness, as you resent that of everyone who has found solace in the Church.”

Edelgard can feel her blood pumping through her veins, fury smoldering away in her chest. Of course, the first thing Mercedes tries to do is provoke her. She doesn’t know what else she expected.

“Perhaps what you say is true,” she responds, “but it makes me no less contrite.” She stops herself there, conscious of how readily Mercedes will try to turn her words against her.

“You’re asking me to trust you, then.”

 _Trust that I’m not lying, yes,_ she thinks to herself.

“But we both know why you did it. You have no power over me, Edelgard, or to control what I think. You’re just like all the others,” she breathes, and Edelgard can imagine to whom she’s referring: her father, her suitors, _men_. “I have no need of your apology.” Her mouth quivers. “And if you had wished for me to fear you, then know that you have been very successful. I know that I am weak, physically, and that strength of spirit means little in its place, but I recognize lust when I see it,” she pushes herself out of her seat, “and I sincerely do hope that whatever may be tormenting you that you find a healthy and constructive way to process it and your emotions regarding such prurience.” Then she stands up and hurries out the door, hiding her face so that Edelgard won’t see.

Edelgard remains seated, but as she does, all the strength in her body leaves her.

“Hubert?” The door is still open.

“Yes, Your Majesty?” He stays where he is, disembodied, but ever-present.

“Hubert, please close the door.”

From the outside, he shuts her in.

* * *

Cornelia is a traitor to the Empire, and Arianrhod erupts into flame mere days after the Empire claims it. Lord Arundel tells her to know her place. Edelgard imagines hacking his body to pieces and burning the bits to ash. They seize the southern Kingdom, secure the supply routes leading into Fhirdiad. She has one chance to make this right—no more, and no less.

After her first sparring practice in weeks, she takes hot stones and a bucket and a wet rag and some soap up to her room, sheds her clothes and drags the cloth over her discolored skin. Her muscles ache and she feels weak, emaciated, but even out of practice she beats Ferdinand, Caspar, and Felix, one after the other. They can’t read her movements, underestimate her at every turn. She feigns weakness in her left arm and drives the hilt of her sword into Felix’s solar plexus to punish him. Only a fool would assume that she would show up to a fight unprepared.

She has a few new bruises, a fresh, lance-shaped scar under her left breast. She washes herself thoroughly and methodically, then scrubs the filth from her hair.

Then she sits, dripping wet, and breathes.

Once. Twice. Once more until she feels whole again. Fat droplets splash the floor. No flames. No heat. Just pure, solitary stillness.

“I’m sorry.” _Fritz, Marta, Julian, Dietrich, Gerhard, Anselm, Tatiana, Brunhilde, Clemens, and Odilie._ She lists off their names, one by one. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

Then she buries her face in her hands, and she cries.

* * *

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Edelgard stares into her glass of red wine. _“I know you don’t need this,”_ Dorothea had said, _“but I need it, and you’re coming along. I don’t care what your schedule looks like. Just make Ferdinand do it. He and Hubie love each other; they’ll be fine.”_

“No,” replies Edelgard, “not quite.”

They’re sitting outside on the dock by the pond where the professor likes to fish, at about three in the morning, in early spring. The snow hasn’t yet melted from the Oghmas’ highest peaks, but the earliest buds have already started to bloom. Dorothea is in a coat, and Edelgard is in her dressing gown. The sky is full of stars. It could be a scene from a novel.

“You know how long it’s been? Five years. How long did it take the professor? Five _months_. You’d think the only reason we’re winning now is because the person you’re in love with—”

“That’s quite enough, Dorothea.”

She smiles, her face a half-moon by firelight.

“I’m scared,” Edelgard admits. “And I’m exhausted. I don’t want to fight anymore. And even when it’s over—when it is really and truly over—there’s still another war to fight, and one I can only ever fight alone.”

“If you’re looking for comfort—”

“I’m not—”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m…” When she looks up, the expression on Dorothea’s face stuns her into silence.

“Hubert would be heartbroken to hear you say that.”

She scoffs and looks away. “This conversation has nothing to do with him.”

Dorothea shuffles closer to her, and sets down her wine glass so she can sit next to her on the dock. “You’re not alone, Edelgard. You have me. And him. And Ferdinand and Lysithea and all the others. Are we not enough for you?”

 _You’ll never replace them,_ she wants to say, but it would be wrong, and she knows that. They were never meant to be replacements for her family, nor for anyone else.

“I’m still not over the loss.”

“I know. But you’ve caused so much more in turn. So has Rhea. So has Dimitri. Once this war is over, promise me something.” Dorothea looks out onto the water’s surface.

What’s one more, really? “What kind of promise?”

“That you’ll use your power to be generous and kind.”

She almost balks. Neither of those are words she would ever use to describe herself. She’s a miser and a taskmaster; she works her soldiers to the bone. She isn’t a good person, and has never thought herself one. She does what is right, regardless of the cost, or the toil or pain or sacrifice.

Then again, she supposes, so did Rhea, or at least, she tried.

“You can’t bring your family back. Not like you did with Jeritza. And maybe you’ll save a few more, once we take the fight to your uncle. But what kind of world will they live in, after all is said and done?”

“I can’t…” she swallows, “I can’t promise you that.”

Dorothea laughs, amused. “Why not?”

“That’s out of my control. I might make it seem like I decide who lives and who dies, but that’s hardly the case.”

“All right, then, fine. I want you to promise that _you’ll_ be generous and kind.”

This time, Dorothea means it.

“To whom?”

She blinks.

“How? For how long? Forever? Whom do I put in charge? Whom do I trust to see this plan through?” Edelgard looks at her. “Will it be you?”

“I’d try,” says Dorothea.

Edelgard laughs. “Then I can promise to try. Though I don’t know how much that promise is worth.”

“You’re making this sound so complicated.”

“It is.” It’s the truth. “Things go wrong. People are selfish and envious of each other, and not everyone is well-intentioned. By mistake, I might put some stupid, callous idiot in charge of the money, somewhere along the way. And then all that money will be gone, and no one will have anything.”

“Then just… find more money and try again.”

Edelgard frowns at her.

“Fine, I get it,” she huffs, and takes a long draft of her wine. “There’s always going to be some rich idiot out there spoiling things for everyone. Don’t I know it.” She sighs and puts down her glass again. “And if you take all the money and store it in the Imperial coffers forever, one of your successors is bound to abuse it, because that’s human nature for you.” She waves her hand. “Let me just get to the point, then, Edie.” She puts her hands on Edelgard’s shoulders.

Edelgard stares back. “Yes…?”

“Fuck me. Please. And I know you want to do it and you know I want to do it and we’ve just been too busy to spend our time frittering it away with each other, but if you’re going to do it with anyone, I’d rather it be with someone willing and not someone… you know… who isn’t.”

Her face flushes incredibly hot. “I thought this was going to be a serious conversation.”

“It is serious. For Sothis’s sake, Edelgard,” she lowers her voice, “you admitted to me that you wanted to rape Mercedes. At the very least, I want it.”

“But…” She looks away.

“Look, I’m not really sure what they did to you, but it’s OK to want these things when the other party is enthusiastic and willing. And… only then. You don’t have to say yes, just…” she screws her eyes shut, “don’t do anything to her. Don’t look at her; don’t touch her; don’t pretend you’re a friend to her when you’re not. She doesn’t want you until she says she does and means it. I know I’ve always just kind of been in your periphery—”

“That’s not true,” Edelgard retorts, but she's dizzy, and her blood is rushing in her ears, and she has no idea how to react to anything Dorothea is saying. “You’ve been right in front of me this entire time, and I must have been a fool to never have noticed.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far—”

“I didn’t realize,” she admits, truthfully. “You’re an actress, and you’re very good at hiding how you feel. I’m… I don’t know. I won’t… I know how she feels about me. I’ve asked Hubert to keep us apart, for now. I don’t want to treat you like some kind of object, Dorothea,” she chokes up, “because that isn’t what you deserve.”

“I… I know,” she says, but now she’s tearing up, too, “you don’t have to tell me that. I don’t think you’re a bad person, Edie. You’ve always been… kind, to me. And you’re so generous to those who are less fortunate. I think everyone is too busy assuming you’re nothing but loud and angry to notice that you do acknowledge that you have flaws and that you are considerate and that you do make mistakes. The choices you make will have consequences that will affect entire generations to come. There’s simply no comparing you to anyone. I can’t…” She pauses. “I think most people are a little in awe of you. You’re untouchable. No one can deny you anything, and when they do, you resolve to take it from them, anyway. And you command these legions of soldiers, entire armies… Someone has to make these decisions. I might love you—I think I could—but you feel far away all the same. Distant and unattainable. I don’t want to sound like I’m begging…”

“No, Dorothea…”

“But some days I can’t fathom who you really are. And it’s not that you aren’t brilliant, because you absolutely are, but it’s simply that you’re the emperor of a thousand different places, and I’m not in charge of anything, so I second-guess myself. I want to… but I worry. And it’s not as though I want to be at the center of your universe, but it’s more that I don’t know where I belong in it at all.” She looks down. “I wasn’t prepared for any of this, least of all for you. I don’t want the responsibility, either,” she laughs. “I just… I didn’t think it would come to this.”

Edelgard takes Dorothea’s hand and places it between her own. “Dorothea,” she says, and then laughs, because this should have been so obvious, “you don’t have to force yourself to do anything. That’s the whole point. You don’t have to love me. You don’t have to love anyone. I can’t promise you that you’ll always have everything you need, but I can promise that I’ll try to make it so. Not because I’m enamored with you or because I want to be with you, but because you deserve to live in peace and comfort and happiness, just like anyone else.”

“Oh,” she says, and blinks the tears from her eyes.

“It…” She lets go. “What happened was in no way your fault, or your responsibility. It was mine. And while being with you might make me happy, it won’t necessarily change who I am.” This is Mercedes all over again, she thinks, and all she can do is make excuses for her obscene behavior. “I don’t want to do anything until I feel comfortable. Until I feel as though I can respect you.” She wipes at her eyes, wet against the bare skin of her hands. “I thought I was prepared to be a monster, but I’m not. I want relationships, and I want affection, and I want to be treated well. But I can’t demand that. I can’t force you to want me any more than you can force yourself. I just want you to be happy, first. And then… Everything else can come after that.”

She seems hesitant, at first, and then Edelgard watches her shoulders relax.

“You could just say that you don’t want me, you know,” Dorothea says, but there’s a note of coquettishness in her voice, high-pitched and sly. She presses herself against Edelgard’s shoulder. She flutters her eyelashes. She pouts.

“Well,” Edelgard replies, “I could.” Then she smiles, as freely and openly as anything. “But that wouldn’t be true.”

* * *

Victory can be sweet. It can be hollow. It can be triumphant, or it can be sorrowful. It was never a given, for the Empire, but it never seemed entirely out of their reach, either.

It feels like work. Fhirdiad is in shambles. Rhea reverts to her human form after she dies, leaving behind an unnervingly immaculate corpse. Dimitri and Dedue are buried together, as they were found. There’s celebrations in the streets of Enbarr and on the grounds of the monastery when they return, and Edelgard departs for the capital as soon as someone is sober enough to take her there.

War, she thinks, was the easy part.

She sits on the throne, stuck in the audience chamber listening to dozens of people talk at her all day. If she receives any sort of contact from her friends, it’s almost always through the mail. It’s the day after she recovered from her injuries, only several times worse and repeated _ad infinitum_. Most people lose all ability to think for themselves the moment they get within ten meters of her. There are portraits. Dinners. Ceremonies. She is obliged to attend Rhea’s funeral at the St. Seiros Cathedral in Enbarr, ridiculously, and spends the whole two hours terrified that Rhea’s corpse is going to burst from the coffin and lunge straight at her like an undead, feral beast. She is not too busy to miss Dorothea, or the professor, and Ferdinand makes too many demands and Hubert only tells her to work. She fabricates an excuse to visit Bernadetta at her home on the Varley estate, and spends a weekend in perfect solitude only to be punished for it the week after with reports and proposals and invitations and a hundred other matters desperately in need of her attention.

People don’t want freedom, she decides, after the seventh complaint about bandits from the former Baron Something-or-Other of southern Faerghus. They want answers.

She appoints Minister Bergliez to oversee the reconstruction of Faerghus, and allows Lorenz to take his place in Derdriu. Dorothea has returned to the opera house. Lysithea alternates between researching Crest removal procedures and filing the necessary paperwork to cede Ordelia to the Empire. Mercedes disappeared after the war while her brother was tried in court for the killings of the Bartels family, and Edelgard hasn’t seen either of them since. Felix has similarly vanished into obscurity. The professor has already begun to track the movements of her uncle and his men. She imagines that they’re still licking their wounds, too.

The Hresvelg family has a cemetery on their estate south of the capital. Her siblings are buried there, as are her ancestors. She visits on odd days, when she feels lonely, or when she feels as though she’s close to giving up.

Manuela is a frequent face in the Imperial Palace, as the Emperor’s personal physician. Hanneman has returned to the monastery as a professor. Shamir works in the service of the Imperial Household, under Hubert. Alois, she has been told, has returned to his family’s farm. Petra, Caspar and Linhardt all still work under the Empire and serve various functions under a multitude of meaningless titles, and she hates how unstructured everything feels after the war. Change is uncertain, and unfamiliar. Change is frightening, and worse yet—she isn’t sure whether anything about herself has changed.

In one sense, at least, she doesn’t feel changed at all.

* * *

She doesn’t realize how starved she is for touch until Dorothea embraces her and she refuses to let go.

“Oh,” she sighs into Edelgard’s hair, “Edie… How long has it been?”

Six months? A year? She can’t remember.

“Too long,” she says, instead, and only because it’s true.

The Hresvelg estate is akin to a summer home—it’s small, as noble houses go, with a courtyard and a pond in the middle, and lots of open space and windows. It’s lonely, and Edelgard surprised that Hubert bothered to keep it guarded during the war. It’s been cleaned prior to her arrival; a few of the servants from the palace are with them. Dorothea hates to be waited on hand and foot, but they really have no choice if they want to be fed as long as they’re here.

“It’s very bold of you to invite me to your ancestral home,” she says, after Edelgard deigns to release her and they’re walking along the inside courtyard.

“I prefer the term ‘gracious.’”

“Will you show them to me?” Her eyes are bright, glittering, _dangerous_. “I want to meet them.”

Edelgard laughs hoarsely. “Dorothea, they’re gravestones.”

“Well, you certainly didn’t learn anything worth mentioning from your uncle.”

Her eyes widen. “Marta… taught me to dance,” she says, haltingly. “Julian taught me swords. Fritz taught me axes. Gerhard liked to race. And Clemens…”

Dorothea tilts her head.

“He was always very sickly. We all knew… Such a weak boy, and nothing we did ever seemed to help. He was the closest to me in age. Not even a year. Every breath I take, I take for him.”

She throws herself into Dorothea’s lap at every possible opportunity, and Dorothea likewise runs her fingers through Edelgard’s hair whenever the chance arises. Dorothea still sings in front of throngs of people, still finds herself showered with gifts and marriage proposals following every performance. She sings a piece from her latest opera. One of the servants pokes out her head to listen.

She falls asleep in Dorothea’s lap, one day, and despite her subsequent embarrassment isn’t disturbed by anyone until she wakes up. They sleep in separate beds. They don’t even mention romance until their stay is nearly over, but the discussion ends with Dorothea being pinned to the wall and a letter telling Hubert that she’ll be extending her trip by an extra day—but not to worry, as they’ll most assuredly be there the following morning.

Somewhere, between her peaks, she thinks of how it could have all gone wrong.

She doesn’t see Dorothea very often after that, albeit not by choice. Dorothea isn’t even half as busy as she is, but their schedules never seem to line up, or rather, Edelgard barely has any time to herself at all. Eventually, maybe, someday, she thinks. They do make the most of their time together, when they have it. Dorothea considers an early retirement. Edelgard tells her that not with her, it wouldn’t be; being the Emperor’s consort—being her partner—is hardly easy living. So Dorothea stays at the opera house, begins to concoct one of the most infamous operas in Adrestian history. She hires a composer. Edelgard deems it lowbrow propaganda. A year passes without news of her magnum opus, then enough time that Edelgard forgets about the opera altogether. Edelgard craves her like a nice, long bath, like the _loukoumades_ from her favorite pastry shop.

She doesn’t know if Dorothea is aware of her shortened lifespan, why she always seems to be in such a rush to finish her work, why she lives every day as though it might be her last. She worries that Dorothea might not know until she’s on her deathbed. She wants to see the opera completed, at least, when Dorothea finally admits to her that she hasn’t stopped working on it. And she wants to see her uncle’s head parted from his body before she leaves this damnable earth.

* * *

When Thales dies, he doesn’t disappear into a puff of smoke, as she was expecting. He dies like a man—ugly and crooked and painful. She ends him quickly after that, not because she doesn’t want to see him suffer, but because he is the one who taught her to fight, and she knows that if she gives him the chance, even on the verge of death, he might still win.

Everything moves quickly after that. The procedure to remove her second Crest is lengthy and excruciating, but years pass, and she continues to live. Lysithea takes up a new career in politics as Minister of the Interior. When her twenty-eighth birthday passes—still longer than she expected to live, still so young—she doesn’t know what to do with herself, with the rest of her life. It feels strange to be alive. She thinks she might propose to Dorothea. Maybe when the opera is done. She has time, now, to reflect on the past. She has time to plan out her future.

A selfish endeavor, she thinks, when so few of them were given the chance.

_“But do you want them?”_

_“I want whatever you want.”_

_She tsks. “What a pathetic answer. Children, Edie, we’re talking about children. Have you ever wanted a family of your own?”_

This is stupid.

She knows she isn’t wanted here. She shouldn’t be here; she should be anywhere else. Forgiveness was never owed to her, and it never will be.

Still, in a sense, she has a right to be here. She has it so long as Mercedes doesn’t tell her to leave.

She runs her fingers along her throat, and curses herself. Old habit. She doesn’t know if any of the children in the room recognize her. At some point, she thinks, she must have granted funds to this place; it’s clean and well-tended, and decidedly not as humble as she had imagined.

She clears her throat. One of the older girls, whose straight back and long brown hair, pinned neatly back into a bun, remind her so much of Marta that it makes her light-headed, stares down at her.

Of course, Marta was always much taller.

“Are you looking for someone?” she asks. Her dark brown eyes are cool, patient. Edelgard wonders how long she has lived here, in this house. She carries herself with an air of authority, although she can’t be older than twelve.

“I’m looking for Mercedes von Martritz.” The name rolls smoothly off of her tongue.

The girl turns to one of the other, shorter girls, who returns her look with a warier expression.

“How do you know her?” the girl who could be Marta asks.

If none of them recognize her, she would rather not introduce herself as the Emperor of Fódlan. Or… as anything else, to be honest.

“We were classmates. At the Officers Academy in Garreg Mach.” She fishes out her Black Eagle pendant and shows it to them, though Mercedes joined so late she isn’t sure whether she ever actually received one.

The other girl appears to relax. Then the two nod to each other, and the shorter girl runs off, disappearing through a doorway.

Edelgard… stands. She watches some of the children play with wooden toys. They’ve all split into their own separate play groups, as children are wont to do. She’s seen them at the monastery—she’s seen Mercedes caring for them at the monastery—so she doesn’t know why this should be any different.

She waits, and waits. She rubs the mangled skin beneath her gloves. She thinks of the lance-shaped scar under her left breast, of all the reasons she’s still alive.

Eventually, the girl returns with Mercedes. She’s largely unchanged from the last time Edelgard saw her. She still keeps her hair short. She still wears the same kinds of dresses. Her eyes are still so dark one could lose themselves in them.

“Oh,” Mercedes says. She looks surprised, but everything else she hides well.

Edelgard wrings her hands. “We’re considering adoption,” she says, “Dorothea and I.”

What she doesn’t say is how manipulative she feels simply to _be_ here, when she could go to somewhere in Adrestia, or Leicester, or even another orphanage in Faerghus. It didn’t have to be here, where she is.

“I-I mean,” she stutters, “I’d understand perfectly if you’d rather…”

Mercedes waits, watches.

Why is she here, really? Is she going to live with this feeling of guilt her whole life? She considers turning around and leaving before she even gets the rest of her sentence out. Dorothea doesn’t know that she’s here. Hubert doesn’t know.

Mercedes invites her inside one of the smaller rooms. They sit at a table that appears to be used for consultation.

“One child, correct?” She moves to a cabinet and begins to pull out papers.

Edelgard holds out her hand. “W-wait. This is a child who will be raised by the Emperor. They couldn’t be just anyone.”

Mercedes looks skeptical. “Are you looking for someone in particular?”

She sinks her face into her hands. “I’m not ready for children.”

“Then why are you here?” she asks. She sounds patient, but she really isn’t. Edelgard can hear the tone in her voice subtly asking her to leave.

“I just want to know if you’ve forgiven me.” That’s what the Church of Seiros teaches, isn’t it? It feels hollow when she thinks about it, knowing she’ll never truly know how Mercedes feels.

“That was a long time ago,” she muses. “You’re still upset about it?”

“Yes,” she says. A bit, or maybe a lot. “I still am.”

“Well,” Mercedes says, and gestures to herself, “here I am.”

Edelgard stares at her, and blinks.

“Are you worried about me? I’m quite well, as you can see.”

“But have you—”

“What does it matter to you,” she says quietly, “if I have? You seem well, Edelgard. Or is that a lie?”

“No,” Edelgard replies. “I’m very happy, actually.”

Mercedes smiles. It looks tired, but somehow, it doesn’t seem forced. “What’s the matter, then? Come back once you’ve made your decision, and perhaps after you’ve had a proper discussion with your partner.” She stands and turns around.

Edelgard scrambles to her feet. “W-wait!”

Mercedes looks back at her. “Yes?”

“A-are you… I-I mean…” She looks down. All the words feel caught in her throat, like she’s choking on them. “Don’t you hate me?”

Mercedes laughs. It isn’t a pleasant one, but there’s something oddly satisfying about it. “You know,” she says, “this may come as a surprise to you… but even though you’re the Emperor, I don’t think about you at all.”

Edelgard coughs in shock.

Then she laughs again, freely this time. “I wish you all the best, Edelgard. And send Dorothea my regards. I hope you’re very happy together.” She wipes her hands idly on her skirts, and then looks around. “I just baked some sweets for the children, actually. Would you like to stay for tea?”

* * *

“Weddings usually take place in a church, don’t they?”

“Mm.” Dorothea’s ring glitters in the evening light.

 _“No more red,”_ Edelgard had insisted. _“I’m sick of the color.”_

It’s inlaid with lapis lazuli and amethyst, which, Edelgard thinks, doesn’t suit either of them very well, but perhaps that was the point.

“What’s wrong with a church?” Dorothea asks, even though she already knows the answer.

 _Ass,_ Edelgard thinks.

“It doesn’t seem right, considering all that I’ve done.”

“Someday,” Dorothea says, “you’ll conquer your fear of churches.”

“I’m not afraid of them.”

“Of course not.” She kisses the top of Edelgard’s head. “And you love rats.”

Edelgard stiffens. Dorothea runs her fingers along Edelgard’s bare back, skittering up her spine. Edelgard freezes up, like a deer stalked by a hunter as their prey.

Then Dorothea presses kisses in their place, and she melts.

“You’re not still thinking of her, are you?”

“Who?” Edelgard asks drunkenly. Who else could there be? They’ve been together for more than five years.

“Mercedes.”

Edelgard snorts. “Really?”

“Really,” Dorothea murmurs into her skin.

“I saw her the other day, actually.”

“Did you? You didn’t tell me.”

“I told no one. I didn’t even tell Hubert.”

“Huh,” she says, and buries her face in the back of Edelgard’s neck. “Was it a tryst?”

“We had tea and cakes.”

“If the rumors going around the monastery were true, then that’s practically a tryst when it comes to Mercedes.”

“We did no such thing.”

“Then why’d you visit?”

“To ask about adoption.”

“Liar.”

“I wanted to know if she hated me.”

“And?” Dorothea asks. “What did she say?”

“She said she wasn’t even thinking about me.”

Dorothea laughs. “Good.” She kisses her again. “Because you’re mine.”

She rolls over so that they’re facing one another, and takes Dorothea’s hand and laces their fingers together. “I had ten siblings, you know.”

“Ten?” Dorothea gapes. “You want _ten_?”

“No!” She squeezes her hand. “Not ten.” Not all at once, at least. “But it was lively, at the orphanage. I think I want that kind of future for myself.”

“A lively one?” she asks. “I always pegged you as a quiet sort.”

“Well,” she says, “maybe I was before.”

“And now?” She raises her eyebrows.

“And now I’m engaged to an opera singer, so I may as well have surrendered my personal claim to any future peace and quiet.”

“Why, you…” Dorothea flushes with embarrassment. “I’ll show you ‘peace and quiet!’” She tackles her to the bed and smothers her neck in kisses, and Edelgard laughs and laughs.

“I love you,” she gasps, and waits, and waits. Waits for her heart to stop pounding and for Dorothea to stop moving on top of her, and waits a minute more.

Dorothea pushes herself up to her knees, and regards her with a look that is so very Dorothea.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she says, and it’s only when Edelgard is ruined and writhing underneath her, breathless and panting her name, that she thinks she might hear it.

“I love you, El.”


End file.
